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The Elephant In The Room Series: Making the Uncomfortable Comfortable is a series of articles that bring you expert knowledge on uncomfortable topics that you may be avoiding.  Our intention is to bring light to these topics and make them more approachable to talk about.  Awareness, not avoidance, is the only way change for the better will take place within you, your family, your community and the world.

As a parent of a teen you can expect to have some of the most challenging talks in our child’s life. It goes with the territory as our teen is immersed in a developmental period which is rocky and unpredictable and is only starting to experiment with the ability to reason. Risky behaviour, drugs, alcohol, driving, curfews, and the dreaded sex talk are just a sample of what lies ahead.

Ironically this is the period of time that our communication with a teen often falls flat. Grunts, tirades, and moody withdrawal do not lend themselves to initiating a meaningful dialogue.  As parents we can become frustrated and fearful as our ability to control situations slips through our fingers. The discussions and issues will come; the topics will be wide and varied and often controversial.  To ready ourselves for this, we would be wise to heed the Boy Scout Motto “Be Prepared.”

Here are just a few recommendations to ease into this time:

1) Practice with the easy stuff.

Teach your teen how to have a conversation about daily activities by sharing stories of your daily events. Letting him in to your adult world where you share some of your goals, achievements or disappointments honours them as an individual. Encourage your teen to be a part of the conversation and listen to their contributions. Know that they may have a different perspective and be curious about it.  You are not required to agree but consider that fresh ideas are the seed from which new things grow.

2) Watch your reaction!

The issues teens experience and the daily decisions they make can be loaded with the potential for negative outcomes.   As a parent it is so important to remain calm, breathe, and curb the knee jerk reaction to yell or “freak out”. If they come to you to discuss something it’s because they feel safe in doing so. To ruin your chances of your teen coming to you again, let them know as loudly as possible how disappointed you are in them and comment at length on their stupidity in getting into this situation.

3) Be open

This is a good time to reflect back to our own teenage years and remember some of the antics you experienced.  Did you ever do or say something that got totally out of hand?  Did you ever jump into a situation without thinking it through? Did your parents punish or belittle you for what you did? Bring some of these memories to the current situation. This is another good time to remain calm.  When your anger or frustration levels are high your reasoning and intelligence levels are low. It might be a wise  to admit that you need some time to gather your thoughts. When ready, ask open ended questions to clarify:

• Tell me more about that.
• What happened then?
• What do you think will happen as a result of this?
• What do you think you should do now?

When your teen feels respected and listened to he will be able to move forward feeling supported and start the process of taking responsibility for his actions.  Keep in mind: you are not responsible for his behaviour. You are responsible for providing an environment and opportunity to learn and grow as your teen becomes an adult.

Challenging talks are an opportunity for growth.  Some will be positive and some will fall flat.  You are human and doing the best you can.  Remember: this stage too will pass!

This Week’s Elephant Topic Expert: Susi Vasseur is the founder of HOW2! A coaching company that focuses its attention on empowering teenagers and their parents.  From an early age, Susi discovered her preference for working with young people.  She is the mother of two successful young adults, a private remedial tutor, and brings over 20 years experience working with teens in recreation, public and alternate school settings and mentorship. Susi is a trained Parent and Teen Coach from the Academy for Family Coach Training.  It is her passion to make a difference for the youth of today and the adults who support them. Find out more about Susi’s work at www.heartsopeningwide.ca

photo: C.G.P. Grey

What’s the most common answer to any question? I’ll give you a hint – it’s 3 words.

(ok, I’ll give you the answer: it’s “I don’t know.”)

Have you ever said these 3 words to yourself in frustration?

Have your partner or kids ever said these words to you?

Is this the answer you automatically think of when a challenging question comes up?

What’s the result of this in your life?

Have you ever found yourself seeking answers in your life and the answers just didn’t come to you? Those three words – I Don’t Know – create a self fulfilling prophecy for us if we use them repeatedly.

How?

Researchers have found that our Unconscious Mind is the age of a 5-7 year old child. For those of you who know 5-7 year olds – they are very literal and need clear instructions to follow. They don’t understand sarcasm or oxymorons.

This is exactly how your Unconscious Mind is too. So when you repeatedly tell yourself “I don’t know” you’re telling your Unconscious Mind not to know – to not even bother trying to know. So it stops helping you figure out answers. It stops supporting you in the decisions you make – you get stuck in “I don’t knowness.”

Jack Canfield, one of the Chicken Soup For The Soul authors says you always have to know what you want - even the simplest stuff like what color of soap to buy. Why? It’s not to be nitpicky and petty. It’s to practice with small choices so that when it comes to making big choices you can do it more easily and with conviction. When you always know what you want you avoid the “I don’t know” curse more easily.

My clients tend to use “I don’t know” as their default answer when we first begin working together – I do ask some pretty tough questions. I ask these questions because my job is to assist clients in figuring out what’s holding them back. If all I get is “I don’t know” then I ask “If you did know, what would the answer be?”

If they still repeatedly say “I don’t know” I give them The Talk. Saying I don’t know is a cop out! It is! The reason you’re in the circumstances you’re in – whether it’s your health, family issues, relationship or love life issues, or whatever you don’t like right now – is because you’ve told yourself You Don’t Know! You haven’t put any energy into knowing or wanting to know because it’s easier just to Not Know. I get that. But don’t you get so frustrated when you ask your kids something and they say “I don’t know?” Or when your partner says “I don’t know” when you ask them what they want to do/eat/or do whatever?

Why is it important to stop using I Don’t Know as a default in your life?

Saying “I Don’t Know” is an easy answer but if you want a better life for yourself and your kids then who do you think has to know what that life looks/feels/sounds like if not you?

Do you expect there to be a “I Know All” genie who will appear and tell you what to do? What to feel?

I wish!

And if your kids hear you use these three words all the time – they will use them too. They will learn to not know what they want too.

So how do you break this curse?

You will not always know the answer – this isn’t about being omniscient. It’s ok to not know some things – it matters how you approach not knowing.

1. You forgive yourself for not knowing up until now.
2. Change your language and your thoughts to “I haven’t known up until now, and if I were to figure this out, I would…..” insert new way of being that you want to be.

You will be amazed over time how your mind and the universe just step up to the plate to support you and guide you.

Sometimes I find with kids it’s “cool” to just be aloof and pretent they don’t know. Don’t let them get away with it. It’s self respect to know what you want. Always. Because if you don’t know what you want you will fall for anything that anyone else wants. We don’t want that for our kids.

So gently guide yourself and your kids to make choices – always. Ask – I know you don’t know but if you did, what would your answer be? This may be annoying at first – especially to your kids, – but they will be grateful that they always had the choice to make up their mind on stuff. And it will serve them well in life to have this skill.

Have you ever gone to the store with your child only to have said child throw a spectacular meltdown in the aisle? Or have you experienced that scenario one too many times and now refuse to go anywhere near a store with your child?

A mom recently told me about how this used to happen to her and what she changed to make it stop!

This scenario usually happens because your child wants something and your answer is “not this time” or “not right now” or some variation. The child gets frustrated because she can’t have what she wants and expresses her emotions by crying or yelling so that hopefully you will give in.

So how do you avoid a situation like this without getting frustrated at your kids? The first thing you need to do is understand a bit about your child’s brain. The second thing you need to do is some preparation.

1.  Children don’t have their rational and logical brain function developed. This part of the human brain doesn’t begin to develop until the age of about 15. A child also doesn’t fully understand the concept of time and so your answers “not this time” or “not right now” are very vague. These answers mean nothing to kids other than it’s not the “yes” they wanted to hear from you.  So they continue to ask you every time you go to the store because they don’t know if this time your answer will be “yes, this time” or “yes, right now.” You get frustrated by their constant asking and they get frustrated by your vague responses.
2.  The preparation you need to do is simply having an answer for your child that makes sense to them and is age appropriate and that you’re comfortable with. Remember, you’re playing the part of logic and reasoning for your kids, so make sure that whatever you say to them is specific and makes sense at their age. This will depend on what they are asking for and what store you are in.

For example:

•  If it’s a toy and they already have three of the same kind, say “You already have three of those and you can play with them when we get home. We will not buy any more of the same toy.
• You could also tell your kids when and where you are prepared to buy a certain item: “We will buy those when we do our back to school shopping in July.”
• Or you can tell your child that they can put a certain item on their birthday, Christmas, or other list of gifts that they want.
• You can also suggest to them that they can save up their allowance or money they earn from chores to buy the item themselves.

Responses such as these will not only teach your children about how money works, how to budget money, and how they can be responsible for the things they want, but also patience. These are life skills that are invaluable for all ages, adults included. And once your children learn that your responses are logical and that they can be in control of the situation to a certain degree, they will behave themselves. This will give you, the parent, the ability to behave too.

 Imagine… no more frustrating bickering matches in the aisles…getting complimented by complete strangers about how well behaved your children are….and knowing that you’re teaching your kids important reasoning skills that they will be able to use throughout life.

Imagine this scenario: you are out of town on a business trip and you receive a frantic call from your spouse who is having a medical emergency which incapacitates her for a whole day.  You have no one else to care for your 4 month old infant and no way to get home fast enough.  Who do you call for help? Who do you trust enough to give your child a caring and trusting environment while you make your way home as quickly as possible?

Do you have a friend you could count on? Would you be the type of friend who would help if called upon unexpectedly with this scenario even though you had other commitments that day, like work? If you would lose a day’s pay and you knew next to nothing about taking care of a baby…would you help your friend?

Dr Wayne Dyer says that the purpose of any human life is to give it away, because that’s all you can do with it.  This means in service to others – not to give it up and die.  We all come from one source and so we are all connected, no matter what you call that source. So when you’re helping others you are helping yourself. Whatever energy you put out into the universe is what comes back to you.

We all know people who give generously of themselves and who are tremendously happy because of it.  People like this don’t look for the “what’s in it for me?” They just do good things for others because it’s the natural thing to do.

 The scenario I described above happened to a good friend. He dropped everything to help his friends who had no one else to turn to.  I am grateful to have many people in my life who live this way.  They stand up for what they believe in, they work smart for what they want, and they give of themselves entirely.  I learn from them and they inspire me to be better than I used to be. 

 It’s important for me to raise children who are givers and trustworthy.  The best way to do that is to be a giver myself.  The important thing to note is that giving must be done from the heart and without depleting ourselves.  We can’t give from what we don’t have.  The good thing is that there are so many ways to give to others – even if it’s a smile or a kind word. 

 What are some of your family’s favourite ways to give back?

Don’t think of a frog prince!
 
Oops!
 
You did, didn’t you?
 
It’s ok, you’re not alone.  There are many parents who tend to think about the stuff they don’t want more than the stuff they
want.  And this is what their kids end up learning to think too – and they all get more of what they don’t want. 
 
I’m sure you’re wondering why that is… simply put it’s because your unconscious (aka the subconscious) mind doesn’t process
negatives. 
 
Wha??? 
 
That’s right.  The subconscious is very literal and has no judgment on the instructions you give it.  So, it follows orders literally
and doesn’t understand what NOT is. 
 
For example, a bunch of insurance companies back in the 1990s did a study of hotels and found that 90% of all slip and fall accidents happen in front of the yellow cones that are placed wherever the floor is slippery.  The cones state “Don’t Slip” and have a picture of a stick figure falling on his/her behind.  So not only are these cones telling you what not to do in words, they are giving you a picture to focus on too!  As you’re walking by, the picture in your subconscious is “slip” and before you can focus on something different (ie, not slipping) you tend fulfill that original picture.
 
So what does this mean for you and the kids learning from you?  You gotta say it how you want it!
 
Do you find yourself always saying or thinking “I don’t want to be so tired!” or “I don’t want to yell all the time?” etc?
 
What your unconscious mind is focusing on is “I want to be so tired” and “I want to yell all the time” and, since it follows
directions literally, it focuses your behaviours, efforts, and attention on being tired or yelling. 
 
This is why all the gurus say it’s important to think positive or say it how you want it.  I can already hear you saying it “Oh
great! More positive thinking! That stuff doesn’t work!”
 
Yes, it does, actually.  But if you have a ton of negative emotions and other gunk in your subconscious you need to clear that out first before you will find it easy to think about what you want.   Think of it like cleaning out a garage of all the junk before you can park your new car in there.  You can do it all at once if you want, or you can do it a little at a time.  The point is to start so that eventually you will be able to park that new car there – aka think differently than you are now.
 
Once you do the clean up it’s easier to focus on what you want and to keep your language clean saying what you do want:
 
“I am vibrant and awake.”

“I am communicating clearly and meaningfully.”
 
So when you want to teach your kids to get what they want out of life, make sure you’re using the cleanest and most positive
language with everything they do.  Make sure the words you say are putting pictures in their heads of what they want instead of what they don’t want. 
 
Instead of “don’t spill the milk” say “keep all the milk in the cup,” or instead of “don’t run because you’ll fall” say “make sure you stay up on your feet.”  This will teach your kids to use language that’s positive too.  (Of course accidents may still happen, but less often.)
 
This goes for you, the parent, too.  The next time you set a goal and find yourself not achieving it because you keep focusing on all the ways in which you are not achieving it, switch to focusing on all the ways in which you are achieving it.  This is what’s going to get you the results you want in your life and your kids lives.

As parents we certainly do our best to teach our kids the things that make them feel self confident, believe in their own abilities, and the skills to handle any situation and rise up to any challenge.  Do our best and we hope it’s enough.  Yes, we hope…is there a way we can know for sure? Well, the easiest way is to look at how we rise up to challenges.

The whole idea of “the apple doesn’t fall far from the pear tree” is actually true – and scientifically proven.  Children (the apples) learn most from the people (the trees) who have the most influence over them – whether that’s biological parents, step parents, or other guardians. 

Think of yourself in a challenging situation, how do you respond?  As Dr Wayne Dyer says, “When an orange is squeezed, orange juice comes out.  What comes out of you when you’re squeezed?” And no, he doesn’t mean blood and guts.  He means, when you’re under pressure and challenged, what are your fall back responses? What are your most familiar and instinctual behaviours?

Knowing these will help you identify the underlying story that you tell yourself about how to respond to situations.  These stories are what create your life and the majority of them are deeply unconscious to us.  It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re true, you just learned them throughout your own life experience.  These are also the stories you’re passing to your apples – your kids. 

If you find that you’re not rising up to challenges in a way that you want to, then the good news is you can change your response!  Phew!  And no, it’s not difficult.  Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to help you start rewriting the stories you tell yourself.

1. What are you saying to yourself about a given challenge? 
2. Is it true, what you’re telling yourself? (We spend so much time convincing ourselves that we can’t, we’re not, we’re don’t have, we….it’s just as easy to debunk those lies and start telling ourselves things that don’t sabotage us.)
3. Who or what would you be if you didn’t believe this? 
4. What resources do you already have to be this person who believes the truth? 

Once you realize that what you tell yourself about any situation in your life is what creates the outcome – you can simply change what you tell yourself.  And don’t’ get all caught up in the “I’m just being realistic” game.  Reality is all in your head and with the right tools and action on your part, you can pretty much do anything you want.  Ok, maybe not grow wings and fly, but you know what I mean. 

Everything that you experience around you was once a challenge for someone – they chose to rise up to it and not tell themselves the “I can’t” story or the “it’s too hard story,” or the “here is my list of excuses” story. 

You don’t want your kids to have excuses; you want them to achieve their best, right?  Why do you allow yourself to have excuses then?  Teaching your kids by example and by role modeling for them is the easiest way to influence them.  They may not always listen to you but they sure as heck always watch you – even when you’re not aware of it.  Rise up to challenges with confidence and your kids will too. 

Who knows, maybe they will be the next inventor of something that will revolutionize humanity the way electricity, toasters, and smart phones did.

Have you ever witnessed your child(ren) say or do something that you don’t agree with?  A situation comes up and they react to it almost by instinct – and it’s not the best possible reaction they could have chosen.  I’ve seen and heard it happen in my own family.

Where did they learn to talk like that?  Where did that behavior come from?  School? Sports? TV?  It’s possible the kids learned it from one of those places.  However, the more probable answer is that they learned it from the parent.  That’s right, from us!

As parents we do the best we can with the resources and knowledge we have.  Our own reactions, responses and behaviours form our comfort zone we fall back on them especially when under stress.  They’re also very much unconscious which means we don’t realize we’re responding or behaving a certain way until it’s usually too late.  Or until we see someone else behaving that way and we don’t like it.  Especially if it’s our kids.

You may have heard that if there is something that you don’t like about another person it’s because you don’t like that same trait in yourself.  When our children learn our traits – the good and the bad, and we notice that they are behaving/responding in a way that we disagree with , it’s the perfect opportunity to look at ourselves and notice how we contributed to their learning this. 

What’s written at the subconscious level is not set in stone and can be changed.  This is good news for bad habits and beliefs.  As parents we want our children to learn the best things – and the best way to do that is to teach them by example. 

An important skill to teach our kids is how to deal with stress in a healthy way.  Now you may think that stress is a fact of life and they just have to deal with it because there is nothing that can be done.  (That’s a belief that may be causing you pain and dis-ease, by the way).  Yes, stress does tend to crop up in modern lifestyles – so how do we teach our kids to deal with it in a healthy way?

One way is to allow them to express emotions.  Bottling up negative emotions because we believe something like big boys/girls shouldn’t cry, yell, pout, or have other reactions when angry, sad, etc, causes our minds and bodies to become overloaded over time.  Teaching children that it’s ok to feel and express emotions in a responsible and safe way is an essential life skill. 

It’s also important to teach kids that their emotions are their choices – no one can really hurt our feelings or make us angry.  We choose to react in an angry or hurt way to situations and people.  When we have an abundance of negative emotions that we feel regularly it’s easier to get caught up in feeling even more negative.  By safely expressing or releasing of negativity we let go of stress and teach our children to do the same. 

By teaching and showing your kids that you handle stress and emotions in a balanced way, you are giving your kids a life skill for how to deal with adversity and challenge in life.

So the kids are on spring break for two weeks and oooops, I forgot that it was coming and scheduled a bunch of meetings and work stuff.  In the past I would have freaked out about how much work I wasn’t going to get done.

This time I made a much smarter decision.  I decided that I was going to enjoy this time with my kids and reschedule what I could, and deliver on what couldn’t be rescheduled.  Much simpler.  Much more relaxing.  And I am much happier.

Now I can go out and jump on the trampoline with the kids or take them hiking without having my work on my mind, encroaching on their time.   I can play Wii golf or bowling with them and make them waffles for breakfast without feeling rushed.

I know that parents can get so caught up in doing things on their to do list that they miss out on the fun stuff.  What’s worse, is they feel guilty about not spending mindful time with the kids because their mind is spinning with so much other stuff.  Now, negative emotions have a specific purpose – but that purpose is not to make you feel bad about your parenting. 

As parents we have lots of responsibilities – work, kids, self care, eating, sleeping.  We have to get clear on what our most important responsibilities are, and then to create a flow that works for us.  To prioritize what we want to accomplish with our time – not just daily, but in our whole life.  So then when something unexpected happens (like spring break that was on the calendar all year, I just forgot to look ahead) we can reorganize our time to reflect our priorities. 

Of course my work is important, and so is my self care, but nothing is more important to me than my family.  These two weeks of time spent with my kids will create lifetime memories and more a meaningful relationship for us.  That fuels my soul even more than my work does.  My purpose here is to empower children and I choose to begin with my own.

Your language doesn’t just define your reality – it creates it.  It’s important to watch your language especially when it comes to creating a healthy family home now and when your kids are teenagers.

We had many spiritual and metaphysical “legends” come and speak and teach at the recent I Can Do It conference in Vancouver.  The main message that I took gleaned was that living your best life isn’t hard, dark, or BORING!  Really it comes down to accepting yourself – warts and all, and then putting your best self out there not just for others but especially for yourself. 

Dr Wayne Dyer, one of the keynote speakers, talked about the four qualities of an enlightened person – and what I live about these is that they are really simple – and we can all practice them!  Spontaneous enlightenment is absolutely possible – that would be cool!  And we can also work on it every day, taking the slower route as we reach out for life. 

Here are the qualities Dr Dyer discussed in general.  They can easily be applied to our daily life as parents.

1. Being independent of the good opinion of others.  This is a common one that parents can get wrapped up in.  They worry about what others think – whether it’s positive or negative.  It’s easy to get caught up in this because if you don’t love yourself unconditionally you will seek out validation outside yourself.  It definitely takes practice to put your best self out there and realize that when you do, you don’t have to worry about what others think.  This is a life skill for kids to learn too.  Self love and self respect are tremendously powerful antidotes to peer pressure. 

2. Being detached from the outcome: Have dreams and goals and take action – but don’t hold on to the how too tightly.  To me this means being flexible in your approach to how you achieve things in your life – no matter what they are.  All parents want a happy family, self assured kids, meaningful communication, feeling connected, etc.  And there is no one way to get there…so stay open to the possibilities.  The important thing is knowing what it is we want exactly, then use the tools that come our way to eliminate stress, set good goals, and stay focused, and help us along our path. 

3. Not investing any energy/time into the control of others.  This means allowing others to bring their best self to everything.  This doesn’t mean not enforcing your boundaries and keeping yourself and your family safe.  There is a difference between teaching your children certain boundaries/rules and wanting to control every bit of their life.  Sure, sometimes it would be so much easier and faster for our kids to just do it our way, but we have to realize that kids also have their own lessons to learn. 

4. See the unfolding of God/Source in everyone.  This means putting aside your judgments of others and yourself.  We are all connected and scientists are even proving this with hard facts and data now.  Our kids learn from what we do and say, so practicing kindness, tolerance, acceptance, and similar qualities is important to set our kids up to succeed.  Oftentimes we get so caught up in looking at the differences between people that we forget how similar we all are.

If you practice each of these daily and forgive youself when you slip up – because we all do – you’re going to be the change you want to see in the world.  And your kids will be there right along with you.